March Madness is less than two weeks away, which means two things:  St. Patrick’s Day is near, and you’re going to need to cook up some good food for all the games you’ll be watching.

One of my favorite culinary masterpieces to munch on while I watch a game is a plate of crunchy, salty chips with hot melted cheese and lots of spicy peppers.

You know them simply as nachos.

I am a huge fan of nachos but I hate fake cheese! Velveeta is the enemy – well not always, but in this case it is!  If you’re going to make nachos you have to use the fresh, real stuff and you have to bake, not microwave them.  I know it’s really easy to just squeeze yellow cheese on some chips and stick it in the microwave, but it only takes a couple more minutes to make gooey nachos full of flavor and melty goodness.  If you’d like to take a stab at making them yourself, try my recipe for the Ultimate Chipotle Nachos.

1 bag of White Corn Tortilla Chips

1 bag of Blue Corn Tortilla Chips (if you can’t find them, just use more white or yellow corn chips)

2 ¼ cups of sharp cheddar cheese

2 ¼ cups of pepper jack cheese

1 cup black beans

1 ½ chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (comes in a can at the store)

2 cups salsa (use your favorite)

2 cups sour crea

1 cup pickled jalapeños

Cook’s note: Depending on how much fire your mouth can take before you break out in a sweat and your nose starts to run uncontrollably, feel free to pile on more jalapeños!  Also, these nachos taste great with some chili rubbed steak or chicken.

Place one of your oven racks on the lowest shelf and preheat oven to 350F.

Dice the chipotle peppers until they look like they are mashed.  Add the peppers and a tbsp of adobo sauce to the sour cream and stir.  Set in the refrigerator to thicken.

Grate both the sharp cheddar and pepper jack cheese and mix together.

Line a baking pan with some parchment paper.  Scatter as many chips as you can fit onto the pan without over crowding (about 1/3 of the chips).  Sprinkle the chips with 1/3 of your cheese mixture and some of the black beans.

Bake in the oven on the bottom rack for 7 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

Top with jalapeños, salsa and sour cream and serve.

Repeat three times, or until you use up all of your chips and cheese.

Then make sure you have some ice-cold beer to wash everything down.  Have a Happy March Madness!!

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Jenn Harris is a former Anteater (that is, University of California, Irvine) and graduated with a degree in Literary Journalism. Currently, she is a grad student at the University of Southern California pursuing a Masters in Print Journalism. Jenn loves to cook and will one day sign a massive contract with the Food Network; but until then she is teaching us little folks at The Sports Union how to cook like a pro for our next tailgate.

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